


Thimithi

by Spudato



Series: Tribelands AU [3]
Category: RWBY
Genre: Gen, Tribelands AU, faunus!Arslan, queer writing by a queer writer for queer readers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-06
Updated: 2018-09-06
Packaged: 2019-07-07 19:50:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15915102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spudato/pseuds/Spudato
Summary: The tribelands of Xuyri in southern Anima are famous for their Burnt Lands, where fires reign over a hollow, blackened landscape and smoke settles over the people like an eternal storm. Arslan Altan should never have found herself within the flames, yet cinders pour from her throat and her bones char until they collapse into ashes under the weight of her destiny. She is Xuyri's Heir, future Chieftain, and bastard child of Sienna Khan.She never wanted it to be this way.





	Thimithi

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome back to Tribelands AU! I was going to write this after Nilas was finished, but I also love Arslan way too much to wait. 
> 
> I HIGHLY RECOMMEND you read (what is currently available of) Nilas before reading this fic for some... basic context of this AU, but if you don't want to, all you need to know is that the the year is 258AD (After Dust) and the world is ruled by eleven great Faunus tribes and their Chieftains. Humans are a new yet constant threat, using Dust to steal land from the Faunus, and the world is at war as people try and defend the tribelands they've called their own for thousands of years.
> 
> Unlike the Jarro-focused Nilas, Thimithi takes place in Xuyri. If you like Arslan, faunus!Arslan, lore, Sienna Khan, lore, and other stuff... read on!

From Xuyri’s most eastward territory came the scent of acrid smoke, and the more Arslan felt it sting down her throat and behind her eyes, the more she felt it travel deep into her lungs, swirling around a seething anger that had settled in her gut like a stone.

The Burnt Lands, as they had come to be known after two decades of fire and smouldering ashes, were picturesque in their own twisted, mottled way; from blackened earth bloomed billowing clouds of ashes and soot, the occasional breeze drawing a charred air into Xuyri proper where a fine layer of dust thrice burned settled atop every surface. Fires ever burning sat bathed in fields of oil, and from deep beneath the ground were hidden great fragments of _Dhool_ \- their word for elemental Dust - that could erupt into pillars of flame with a quake and rumble of fragile earth. On those days, the smoke that followed each catastrophic eruption would be as thick and heavy as a storm, obscuring the sun as it spread in rolling, curling tendrils, rising from otherworldly towers of heat that scorched the land below hollow.

It could be something out of ancient legend, of firewalkers leaving cinders of footprints behind on paths so hot they could leave skin blackened and crumbling from the bone, and even now the people of the tribe spoke of the Burnt Lands as being a Hallow’s recompense for a sin long forgotten. _If only we’d stuck to tradition,_  they would say, brushing ash from the tops of statues and leaving offerings at each shrine as they bemoaned the way their children choked on torrid air. _If only we’d done things how we’d always done them._

The thought made Arslan bite her tongue, flashing bright and pointed teeth at the people in her mind’s eye. Tradition. All it had ever done was bestow misery on those unfortunate enough to be different.

“Arslan?”

Ears perking high at a familiar voice, Arslan glanced over one shoulder, sat as she was upon the stone-paved steps leading to one of the great pagodas dotted around Xuyri’s vast borders, where gifts and prayers alike were offered for the Hallows to keep their territory safe. Out here, staring out into the Burnt Lands, Arslan could almost always count on being utterly, entirely alone, only the smoke and her own clouded thoughts to keep her company. Yet it wasn’t the view that saw her frequent return, nor the beauty of the pagoda itself; rather, it was the furthest yet safest place from the Chieftain’s estate she could go. When anger twisted her in her stomach so tightly she thought she’d be sick from it, she could trust that people would leave her be as she cast her thoughts out into the distant embers, to be consumed eternally, fuelling and incinerating the corpse of a land that was never to recover.

But her mother had never had such qualms, as much a stubbornly guiding hand as she had been Arslan’s closest confidant for so many years. It was easier, she’d say, to talk out the hurt, but sometimes Arslan feared that all she’d choke out was that same black smoke, trapped in her chest and carried with her, always.

Yet, from the open archway into the pagoda stood Sherveen anyway, donned in a finely-made sari of minty greens, cotton whites and bloody reds, cast alight in the glow of a low evening sun, hands folded in front of her with a demure smile and and a relaxed, open posture, trying to cut a non-threatening figure. Perhaps, in another world, someone else would look upon the same scene and presume she was trying not to goad her daughter, keeping herself small and unassuming lest she be sent away, but Arslan knew her too well to believe otherwise. She was all too familiar with how Xuyri’s ways could burrow under the flesh and stick there like barbs, forcing conformation. The sight reminded her of the embers that had burnt into her very marrow, of a rage forever licking at the inside of her skull, and so she turned away, patting the worn stones next to her in an invitation.

The feet that padded closer brought with them the slightest scent of perfume, of incense and soaps, and when Sherveen stepped down to sit beside her daughter Arslan didn’t hesitate to shuffle closer, letting her mother bring an arm about her shoulders as the bitter smoke was replaced by flowers and spices, of a luxury few would ever truly live in.

“You missed your evening meal,” Sherveen observed idly, green eyes like flakes of jade as she looked out towards the dimming sun that kissed Xuyri’s distant horizon, a matching set to Arslan’s own. The accusation wasn’t said, but it didn’t have to be, not when it laced each syllable anyway; Sherveen rarely let Arslan miss meals for anything less than illness and near-death experiences, often reminding her that there wasn’t much most young Faunus _wouldn’t_ do for even the scraps on her plate. Yet, the idea of sitting with her half-blooded siblings, of holding in all the acid that bubbled on the back of her tongue as they ate together, had been too much to bear today. They weren’t the ones her vitriol was truly aimed at.

“I’m sorry,” Arslan murmured, ducking her head down. “It won’t happen again.”

Sherveen hummed, the edges of her nails gently digging into the muscle of Arslan’s shoulder as a gentle rebuke, but it appeared forgiven when she replied with, “the fires are burning low today.”

Arslan had to agree, if perhaps a little begrudgingly. There were no fiery pillars to be spotted across the haze of the land, but merely cinders in their wake, living off what little there was to be scavenged until a stronger wind would see them stoked once more. Arslan knew of only a few Faunus who remembered the territory before the first fires started upon a blazing summer day, who could reminisce of open plains and vast scrubland, of hunts that stretched from the border all the way to the far coast. Gone, now, all burnt down to ashes and the ashes burnt to nothing more.

“For now.” Arslan didn’t bother voicing the disappointment that the words implied, but Sherveen simply laughed beneath her breath, pulling Arslan closer so that she was leaned against her. Arslan was far bigger than her mother, teenage years seeing her grow more than a head taller and broad of shoulder and hip alike, but she appreciated the affection, once always curling up next to her in the quiet hours as a child, forgiven for even her greatest faults.

Arslan wished it could have stayed that way forever.

“Are you here because Sienna asked to see you afterwards?”

It was just like her mother to divine the heart of truth, after all.

Sighing, Arslan turned to press her face into Sherveen’s pale hair, indulging in the moment of silence that followed. She hadn’t pretended her recent mood had been for any reason otherwise, not for the weeks it had lingered like a constant rainfall over her head, when everyone knew too well what was rubbing her nerves so raw these days. Not that Sherveen ever let many of Arslan’s proverbial stones go unturned, of course.

“If Chieftain Khan once again expects me to waste hours of my time just to find some type of… _common ground_ between us, I’m afraid she’ll have to be left wanting.”

As Arslan had predicted, even saying the Chieftain’s name forced a sharp bile to rise up her throat, making her choke on the words with distaste too potent to be disguised, and Sherveen squeezed her shoulders tight before pressing a kiss between velvety liger ears, purring into her thick blonde mane. “Sienna wants to care for you.”

“But _I_ do not care for _Sienna_ ,” Arslan grumbled, scowling as tension seeped into her muscles. “No matter if I am her Heir or another misbegotten child.”

“That isn’t true.”

Irritation flared up Arslan’s spine, as hot and scalding as boiling oil, and she pushed away from her mother’s embrace to sit tall, nose flaring and scrunching as she snapped her teeth together in a furious snarl. “When I was but another bastard who was kept out of her sight, she didn’t _care_ for me. She didn’t care for any of us! And now, when it’s _convenient-”_

“Arslan-”

“-because it was _she_ who has irritated her council so dearly-”

“Arslan!”

“-she walks in and pretends to _give a damn-”_

“ _ARSLAN!”_

Her name was shouted with a roar, guttural and rumbling, and Arslan’s tirade ended with a heavy breath, Sherveen levelling a glare at her so venomous that a lesser Faunus would likely be struck dead from the force. Once, when she was just a child, the sight would have made Arslan a little afraid, crying out an apology as she tugged at her mother’s clothes, but now Arslan didn’t shrink back down, pride keeping her back straight and teeth bared, jaw tense and heart stung by the frustration that made Sherveen’s shoulders quiver.

“Sienna is-” she started, before she shut her eyes, breathing evenly to keep a rasp from her voice. “Sienna is not your enemy. I know how easy it is to embrace the anger, to say that you hate her, that you want nothing to do with her… but you and Sienna are- you are equals now. You must learn to work _together_.”

“But I- I despise her,” Arslan said, and she hated how it came out almost mewling, catching right behind her teeth, as though she were ten autumns old and begging for attention. “I always will.”

Yet Sherveen just shook her head, and when her eyes opened all that Arslan could see reflected back was disappointment, darkening Sherveen’s eyes to a shadowed forest green. It hurt to see, pain lancing right through Arslan’s stomach, and she finally felt chastisement sink into her skin as anger drained away in an instant, leaving her body cool in a way that made the fine hairs on her arms prickle. Sherveen looked to the charred landscape laid out before them both, a deep exhale making her deflate, and then she became the person Arslan had come to expect; half the size she really was and with all her claws and teeth hidden away.

“I know what hate feels like,” she began. “I carried it for so long, and it wasn’t until… until I had you that I realised it had almost rotted me away to nothing. It’s a poison. When you can never cure the source of it, it will kill you sooner than it will save you.” Shaking her head, Sherveen smiled a bitter, broken smile, sighing as the sun began to slip beneath the line of the horizon. “I don’t wish it on anyone. I surely don’t wish it on you.”

Eyebrows knitting together, Arslan’s eyes dropped to the red sash about her waist, toying with the broad edge and the white details stitched upon it. What she felt for Sienna had always been an ugly thing, at first ignored and later rekindled into something pointed and vicious, and Arslan knew it best by how it tangled about her ribs and wrapped around her tongue, souring the food she ate and making each word she spoke bleed red. Some days it was a struggle to breathe with how it weighed her down, digging into the ground and planting her there forever, wrapped about her ankles and pressing thorns deep into her skin.

 _I surely don’t wish it on you_. But what else was Arslan to do?

Sherveen did not say. She didn’t say anything until the sun was long below the edge of the world, the sky merging from pink to indigo to a star-speckled black, the only light being that from a fractured moon and unsmothered cinders that glowed across the sea of ash. Only then, when Arslan was cold enough to shiver from the chilled night air, did she speak.

“You are just like Sienna, sometimes. Your heart dictates to you so much more than you think, so much more than you wish to admit.”

The thorns dug deeper, scraping at the inside of Arslan’s throat, and she did not reply.


End file.
